


not so happy birthday

by snottygrrl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Birthday, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-02
Updated: 2005-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snottygrrl/pseuds/snottygrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>draco imagined a lot of ways to spend his bday</p>
            </blockquote>





	not so happy birthday

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings:** um, angst?  
>  **disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
>  This author is not responsible for underage readers. Please observe the ratings, warnings, and age of legal consent for your country.  
>  **author's notes:** i'm not really sure about this odd, wee ficlet. i wanted to write a draco centric fic and since i had done a bday one for harry, i thought i'd do one for draco, also post-war. but it just wasn't happening, and this one kept niggling at me. during my phone call with [](http://earth-magic.livejournal.com/profile)[**earth_magic**](http://earth-magic.livejournal.com/), we decided that the night on the tower could happen on draco's bday (all jkr does is indicate that we have started june and ginny is studying for OWLS). so i figured i'd just go ahead and write this instead of wibbling about it anymore. dedicated to [](http://purpleink.livejournal.com/profile)[**purpleink**](http://purpleink.livejournal.com/) as an appalling late bday present.

Draco Malfoy had imagined a myriad of scenarios for his seventeenth birthday during the numerous years leading up to it.

When he was a young child, his favorite had been the one with the huge party at the Manor. There would be at hundreds of guests from all over the world and heaps of presents. They'd play lots of games, even Quidditch (he'd catch the snitch). Afterwards, the house-elves would supply unending food, including all of his favorites, topped off with a gigantic cake.

After he started at Hogwarts, he'd figured out that he would come of age on a Thursday. He could still have a celebration the following weekend, but on his birthday he'd have a boisterous party in his house common room with contraband firewhiskey and gifts befitting the Prince of Slytherin. Of course there'd be rude games and drunken snogging with whomever he wanted.

In recent years, his childhood dream of the party at the Manor had been replaced with an exclusive weekend spent in the Italian Alps with a few choice guests. There would still be loads of gifts (this time from absent admirers), and ample food to sate his palate. Antipasto. Risotto. Veal scaloppini. Dulce. Bellisimo.

But of all the various incarnations of his seventeenth birthday, nothing came close to the reality.

For instance, he'd never considered the possibility that his father would be in prison, leaving Draco to attempt to salvage the family name from disgrace. Never suspected that his mother would have cried and pled and been forced to go behind the Dark Lord's back just to ensure that Draco would even make it to his birthday. He'd never supposed that he would spend his first day as an adult leading killers into his school, letting werewolves and psychopaths loose among his fellow students.

Most of all, he never would have imagined that, not only would he challenge the Muggle-loving Headmaster, fail and yet live, but that the daft, old coot would get inside his head. Make him doubt his beliefs and loyalties. Leave him to ponder whether he'd had a choice. Even cause him to silently wish he'd chosen differently.

And now, as he races through the Hogwarts' wards, he glances briefly back at the castle and feels the last of his childhood slip away with the sudden feeling that he will never see this place again. Before he Apparates, he pauses for a moment, watching Snape and Potter duel, and wonders why he was so anxious to arrive at this moment. He inwardly scoffs at his youthful delusion that, once he was an adult, he'd be able to make his own decisions. That he'd be in control. That things would simply flow the way he wanted.

His responsibilities weigh on him and the helpless feeling that he has no alternative returns, causing his stomach to knot. Yet even as he thinks this, Dumbledore's voice comes unbidden to his mind, _So let us discuss your options, Draco,_ and he is forced to admit that there is _always_ a choice, sometimes it just isn't very pleasant.

Snape's furious cry reminds him of where his current set of decisions has brought him. Draco steals himself for what will happen if he chooses an alternative path, takes one last look at Harry Potter and Apparates.

~fin


End file.
